Zoning, and the Houston Preservation Ordinance

Chronicle blogger Tori Gattis had an excellent article today – about zoning, and the proposed revisions to Houston’s preservation ordinance. I had originally written this as a response to his blog, but it took on a life of its own.

Whenever there's a fight over development, someone always chimes in with "if we had zoning, this wouldn’t happen.” They’re wrong, but it’s easy to see why they pine for zoning. Houston has relatively few controls on building. Developers can pretty much build whatever they want, wherever they want, with no consideration of their surroundings or the future. Neighbors who don't like it, are told to leave. It contributes to urban sprawl, it creates urban blight, it's the opposite of green, and it leads to land-use battles that frustrate both developers and neighborhoods.

When you're talking about zoning, you're not really talking about the rights of the community versus the rights of an individual. You're talking about the power of Government over the rights of both the individual and the community. A handful of planners writes a zoning ordinance, and everyone else has to live by it. Neighborhoods (communities) don't really get to decide what's right for them, any more than individuals are allowed freedom over their own property.

As an architect and a Super Neighborhood President, I’ve suggested an alternative legal approach to zoning that would affect high-rises, large residential developments, and hazardous occupancy buildings. But what we really need is cooperation on all types of development. Developers can cooperate by using common sense, studying their surroundings, thinking long term, and talking to neighborhood groups. Neighborhood groups can cooperate with their own planning, and working out their own needs and concerns. They can communicate these concerns in a consistent way - instead of blindsiding developers with last minute protests. This would really be a community based way of developing - zoning would only get in the way of it.

Where does Historic Preservation fall into it? In an ideal world we wouldn’t need an ordinance to enforce . Again, cooperation could take the place of an ordinance. When a historically significant property goes on the market, preservationists could research the property and give that research to the realtor. The realtors could use that research to get buyers who are interested in preserving the property. The City’s preservation ordinance I think respects this – at least, it wouldn’t get in the way of it.

Learning from our Mistakes - the Fifth Anniversary of "The Big Heart"

Whenever we hear about mistakes and Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans take the spotlight. Poorly built levies that failed. Buses that could have been used to evacuate, but weren’t. ‘Refuges of last resort’ that were never equipped to serve as such. Hospitals that were left to fend for themselves.

Houston comes through in a positive light. We got the nickname “The Big Heart,” for our compassion after the storm. It’s true that we Houstonians opened our arms to New Orleanians when other cities wouldn’t. But there were some very serious mistakes here, too:

- There was a lack of long-term services for evacuees. They got counseling at the Astrodome – along with other services . But they were soon rushed to far-flung apartments, and the services went elsewhere. It would have been better if the evacuees had gotten help like job placement and grief counseling on-site in the apartments.

- There was inadequate policing to handle the evacuees in the long term. HPD should have hired officers from New Orleans to come and join the force. Those officers could have given valuable insight into the gangs and crime patterns that were prevalent in New Orleans before the storm; not to mention adding to HPD’s manpower. To their credit, HPD wanted more officers after the storm; but they didn’t have the money to do it.

- Housing was poorly administered. The goal was to put as many people into apartments as quickly as possible, and for the most part that goal was met. But in the rush, important things were missed:

o There were no guidelines for habitability, safety, or security in apartments that welcomed evacuees. Evacuees moved into some pretty squalid complexes.

o They didn’t screen evacuees. It was too easy for criminals to move in and wreak havoc. Some apartments faced mounting crime, and it was (sometimes rightly) blamed on the evacuees.

o FEMA checks didn’t always come on time. The program kept changing. It led to uncertainty on the part of landlords and evacuee tenants – and fueled tensions.

These mistakes were amplified by the scale of what happened. 250,000 people came to our City over a matter of days. Our City grew by 10% within a week. Neighborhoods changed – many for the worse. People talk about the mistakes in New Orleans after Katrina. But we should also learn from the mistakes that were made here in Houston.

Thoughts on WalMart: Developers need to do a better job of listening to neighborhood groups.

I didn’t make it to the hearing on The Washington Heights WalMart yesterday evening, but I wish I had. As a Super Neighborhood President, and an Architect I can’t resist weighing in on a land use battle.

There are positives to the Washington Heights WalMart development. They’ve found a big piece of land in an up and coming neighborhood. The site is an abandoned factory (what we call a “brownfield”); it is the kind of property that neighborhoods beg to redevelop. And at some level, you have to wonder how much of the opposition is to WalMart in general. There will be 30 other stores in the development. Nobody’s protesting them.

But there is a major drawback to the Washington Heights WalMart: site access. The property is bounded on one side by train tracks. On the other three sides it has minor, two lane roads. I-10 is nearby, but there is currently no easy access from the highway to the site. Rumor has it that TXDOT will build a new exit from I-10 that will fix it, but until they do, It’s going to be a nightmare for drivers to reach this property.

Neighbors have rightly pointed out these concerns (along with the resultant traffic, crime and noise) - and the developers would be wise to listen. In general, developers need to do a better job of listening to neighborhood groups. They need to do it before they close on a piece of land – just like they would consult a zoning ordinance in most other cities. They could avoid land use battles like the one over the Washington Heights WalMart; and get fresh insight into their plans. In the end the developments would be better, and Houston’s neighborhoods would be better, too.

The New Paradigm - A Call to Neighborhood Groups

Whenever I hear someone talk about the ‘inner city,’ I have to chuckle. It’s not that I disagree with helping disadvantaged people who live in cities. It’s that cities are no longer centers of poverty. Cities are being rediscoved by the middle and upper classes; and all over the country, suburbs are starting to face problems that were always considered city problems: homelessness, crime, depressed property values.

For 50 years the middle class eschewed cities to move to suburbs. And it would be logical to think that we’re now eschewing the suburbs to move to the city. But that’s not really what’s happening. We’re moving to neighborhoods that fit our needs and lifestyles. Every person is different, so no single type of neighborhood attracts everyone. In the future, we can expect to see growth that is based on the desirability of individual neighborhoods – whether they are in the city, suburbs, or exurbs. This is what I call the new paradigm.

Andrew Burleson, president of the Houston chapter of the Congress for New Urbanism, is studying what he calls the “Net Attraction Framework.” Most of Burleson’s study is given over to the same old New Urbanist re-packaging of traditional town planning. But he rightly points out that there are many things that attract people to a desirable neighborhood. Among them are a strong local economy, low crime rates and good schools, and beautiful natural and built environments. I would add that a good transportation network is also vital – especially in suburban and exurban neighborhoods.

Neighborhood groups can influence these things. We can plan for improvements to our built environment. We can market our neighborhoods as good places in which to do business. We can cooperate with police and enact citizens on patrol programs. We can volunteer at local schools and work with school boards. We can lobby local transit boards for new bus and rail routes. And, of course, we can put our time and effort into neighborhood beautification efforts.

The specifics on what these goals are, and how to get there will vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. But neighborhood groups had better do these things, because the new paradigm presents neighborhoods with great opportunities and also great risks. Houston’s future slums will be places where neighbors don’t care or have become jaded. Houston’s next ‘hot’ neighborhoods will be places that invested the time and effort to pave the way for growth.

An Open Letter to Apartment Developers

It has been a bad week for Houston’s apartments.

On Sunday morning, a man was found fatally shot at the Tall Timbers Apartments, in east Houston. On Tuesday, a man shot his wife while his daughter watched in front of a small apartment complex at 910 Adele in north Houston. On Thursday, a man was shot just steps from his home at the Arbor Ridge Apartments in north Houston; and another man was found dead at the City Parc II at West Oaks in southwest Harris County. On Friday, two separate apartment complexes caught fire – one in Northwest Houston, and another near The Galleria.

As if this week’s mayhem weren’t enough, the news also reported two stories from earlier this year. Joshua Leon Marshall is still on the run for his role in the May 9 shooting of Reginald King at the Pine Ridge Place Apartments in northwest Houston; and in the most tragic of stories, a 14 year old girl is in jail after she gave birth and killed her baby at the Greyfield Apartment Homes in southwest Houston.

Horror stories like these drive a wedge between neighborhoods and apartments. Nobody wants to live next door to a complex that’s notorious for crime. And the stories sit in the back of neighbors’ minds when a developer plans to build apartments near them, too – but developers don’t always listen.

A few months ago, I came across this post on the multifamilybiz.com blog. Caution – it’s not fun to read. The author spares no effort in insulting the valid concerns of neighbors. Traffic, flooding – he laughs at those. Public hearings are “kangaroo courts,” and developers are constantly having their ‘perfect’ projects shot down by little old ‘Aunt Sally’s.

The developer who wrote the post might have good reasons to be frustrated. Maybe he missed the required drainage and traffic studies on a project, and a neighborhood group called him on it. Or maybe he’s just venting after being on the wrong side of one too many canceled projects. I actually agree with what he wrote about meeting with neighbors – even if he suggested it for all the wrong reasons.

The vast majority of apartments in Houston are fine places to live. Most development is good. But we constantly hear about the bad apples: the developers who are at war with neighborhood groups; the apartments where people are getting shot. Developers would be wise to read these stories carefully, and work with neighborhood groups (not against them) to do projects that benefit everyone.